Key Points
- “60 Minutes” lost more than 5 million viewers after pulling a completed segment tied to an El Salvador prison linked to the Trump administration.
- Viewership fell from 10.35 million to 4.89 million week over week, with sharp declines in the key A18-49 demographic.
- The drop followed internal editorial concerns and a holiday-week special edition in place of regular reporting.
Paramount’s flagship news magazine program “60 Minutes” lost more than 5 million viewers in its first episode following a controversial decision to pull a completed story on an El Salvadorian prison linked to the Trump administration, according to viewership data from Nielsen reviewed by The Desk on Monday.
The segment was scheduled to air on December 21, but was replaced hours before its planned broadcast after CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss expressed reservations about the thoroughness of the reporting.
Specifically, Weiss was concerned that the 60 Minutes team, including correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, did not exercise enough due diligence in obtaining a comment from the Trump administration about a decision to send individuals detained by immigration officials to the El Salvadorian prison known as CECOT.
The prison has been flagged by human rights advocates for alleged torture and abuse. Some detainees who were flown to the prison by the Trump administration made the same allegations to Alfonsi during the story, which accidentally streamed on a Canadian television platform.
The December 21 broadcast attracted 10.35 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings, including 1.872 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 years old (A18-49), the demographic most-attractive to broadcast TV advertisers.
The following week, that number was cut in half, with 60 Minutes attracting 4.89 million viewers and just 455,000 in the A18-49 demographic, the Nielsen data showed.
60 Minutes is typically the highest-rated, non-sports program on broadcast TV. Combined with the network’s offering of entertainment and sports programming, CBS ended last year as the top network in the daily ratings war and second place in the prime-time ratings.
The December 28 airing of the show was a special edition listed under the “60 Minutes Presents” brand, which is used when CBS expects the program’s ratings to be lower due to overflow live events like sports or holiday weekends when Americans are not likely to be watching as much TV.
The special edition, called “60 Minutes Presents: Cheers,” featured stories focused on a common theme — alcoholic beverages — that aired on earlier episodes of the program.
New segments began airing on the January 4 edition of 60 Minutes. Finalized ratings data for that episode will be available later in the week.
